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wlien required^ but that large manufacturing centres were 

 established, in suitable localities, from which immense quan- 

 tities of implements were issued, to be dispersed in the 

 ordinary course of that trade which is known from various 

 sources to have been carried on by the wandering tribes of 

 those early days ; the implements derived from these factories 

 can be traced over wide districts. 



In this country we had the well-known prehistoric manu- 

 factory of Cisbury, where are still to be seen the old pits and 

 galleries from which the flints of the Chalk were obtained, 

 and in which pits are found not only numerous remains of 

 the implements themselves, in various stages of completion, 

 from the rough nucleus to the finished axe-head, but also of 

 the tools used in extracting the flints. 



In France a considerable number of such factories are 

 known, — for instance, the celebrated one at Pressigny-le- 

 Grand, others also at Civray, Biard, and Charroux in Poitou, 

 and one in the Commune of Chauvigny (Loire-et-Cher), called 

 " le Champ des Diorieres. Turning now to Spiennes, we find 

 above that village, a tiny hamlet of labourers^ cottages, built 

 on either side of the little river Trouille, plateaux now occupied 

 by cultivated fields, but which were formerly the site of one 

 of the most important Neolithic factories with which we are 

 acquainted. The table-land is cut through on both sides of 

 the river to the south of the village by the railway, which has 

 thus enabled us to obtain good sections of the various beds 

 forming the elevated ground. These are found to consist of 

 brick-earth below the surface detritus, and under this is sandy 

 loam, locally called " ergeron," which, in its turn, reposes on 

 other sandy beds, and on a deposit of angular and subangular 

 flints, together with chalk debris, the chalk rock itself forming 

 the basement of the whole series. 



In the lower portions of these beds remains of the Plei- 

 stocene age occur, such as the mammoth, the woolly rhino- 

 ceros, the cave bear, the lion, the Irish elk, the urus, and the 

 horse, and with these have been found flint implements of the 

 well-known St. Acheul or river-gravel type. Through these 

 various deposits, pits similar in many respects to those of 

 Cisbury have been dug by the Neolithic men; in several 

 places these pits not only penetrate the chalk, but from them 

 workings have been driven in order to follow the line of flint 

 nodules, to obtain which was evidently the object of these 

 excavations. Sections of some of these pits have been exposed 

 along the line of the railway-cutting, and bere and there 

 openings may be seen which communicate with the old 

 galleries, whilst on the surface of the plateau itself the situa- 



